Rome
Victor left the chatter and bustle of the center of town and headed out toward the wood.
He walked until the city quiet turned to the sound of wind in the branches.
Walked until the sun was starting to go down and he really should have been heading home. But he couldn’t stop thinking, and he felt like he was either close to revelation—or panic attack.
Just when hunger began to gnaw at him, the light from a small town brightened his path. He rushed through their dusty streets until he spotted the village tavern at the end of the square.
Victor wiped the sweat from his brow, threw his shoulders back, and pushed open the door.
Unlike the taverns back in Ingelstad, this place was homey and bright. The air wasn’t clouded with smoke; there weren’t men arguing, yelling angrily. There were families, people talking quietly and eating dinner. Like a great mess hall instead of a watering hole.
Victor slid onto a stool at the bar and took off his hat. A woman with bright red hair braided in a crown around her head approached him at once to take his order.
She was very pretty, fluttering her lashes at him like she knew he could afford a nice tip. And she wasn’t wrong. He was the only man in the room in a proper woolen cape and shined shoes. The rest of the people here were—to put it lightly—peasants.
She gave him her name—Magda—and flounced away to put in his order and get him a beer.
Victor closed his eyes and put his head in his hands.
“Excuse me.”
He looked up. A man with a washrag in hand smiled at Victor and gently wiped the bar in front of him with clean hot water scented with pine.
“Sir, what time is it?” he asked the man, who was already scrubbing the other end of the bar.
“It’s near four. If you’re headed back to the city, you can buy a torch for your way. We have a wagon that takes people, but the driver is ill now.”
The man’s voice was incredibly soft and resonant. Victor found himself looking harder at him than he ought to in any other circumstance.
The barkeep was thin to the point of pain but moved with grace and confidence. He and Victor were close in height, close in age. His hair was long, unbecoming for a man in the city, but perhaps that didn’t matter in such an unimportant village.
The barkeep’s face was sallow and sharp. His eyes were soft, brown, and long-lashed like a girl’s. His mouth was too wide to be pretty but managed it just the same.
“Here you are, duckie.” The barmaid, Magda, swanned back to him, placing a bowl of steaming venison stew and a frothy mug of beer in front of him.
“Thank you.” Victor reached out a hand before she could disappear again. “That man said I could purchase a torch for my walk home?”
Magda leaned over, perching on the counter. “Oh, for you, sir, I’ll lend my best lantern if you promise to come back?”
Victor smiled. “That’s very kind of you, I—”
He could hear the barkeep laughing, soft and musical, and it was a terrible distraction. “Oh, thank you,” the man was saying. “I’ll share it with the rest of the family.”
“But it’s for you, Elias!” There was a girl trying to push a cake into the barkeep’s—Elias’s—hands, but he shook his head, still beaming.
“Frida, it’s lovely, but I can’t have it.”
Magda smiled, following Victor’s gaze. “Sugar sickness.” She whispered conspiratorially to him, “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if you had a piece.”
As she flounced away, Victor’s heart began to race.
Sugar sickness . . . was interesting. It caused comas so close to death that victims were often buried.
While in most cases, you had to wait for the sufferer to wake.
But Victor had an incantation to force a soul to the surface.
A spell for coma healing. Easier than that mess with the drunk and resolvable by other means if it failed.
A man with nothing to lose and everything to gain. Elias looked older than Victor but not by much, and everyone with the sugar sickness understood they were living on borrowed time. A thought was brewing—still soft edged and unformed.
Victor stared at Elias as he ate his stew, turning his face away every time. The pretty barkeep noticed him looking.
When he was nearly finished, Elias whisked his bowl away and placed a small piece of cake in front of him.
“Magda said you might be interested.” He smiled.
Victor looked him full in the face. “I am.”
Elias did something curious then: he blushed.
“Are you new to town? There are a lot of people here passing through. . . . Are you planning to stay a while?” Elias asked.
Victor shook his head. “I just got a bit overzealous on a long walk. I’m heading back as soon as I’ve finished this.”
“Oh,” Elias said. The light of the candle on the bar top stretched the shadows across Elias’s face so he looked . . . vulnerable.
“If you come back, I’m sure my sister would be happy to walk with you.” And, oh, what a question was in the tone of Elias’s voice. Victor heard so much in that. He gazed up into Elias’s face for long moments past propriety.
A homosexual, like Henry.* A criminal.
This could work.
Victor wished he could whisk him away now. He was so perfect. Elias: a man destined to brush lips with death.
Victor smiled. “Perhaps when I come back, I can take a walk with you.”
Elias blushed again. He turned away to unhook a lantern from behind the bar and placed it next to Victor.
“Bring it back when you come. We need it,” he said, face still blazing, then disappeared into the kitchen, where Victor’s gaze could not reach him.
Victor waited fifteen minutes past the completion of his slice of cake, but Elias did not return. He paid Magda nearly twice what he owed and disappeared into the night.
His heart was light and he couldn’t help but whistle.